


a rose for a pretty boy

by queenmcgonagall



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, M/M, valentine's day fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 13:04:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenmcgonagall/pseuds/queenmcgonagall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So there’s this boy, and he’s got a giant bouquet of roses and a laugh that makes Louis think of sunshine, and he called Louis pretty, so maybe Louis should go out on a Valentine’s Day date with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a rose for a pretty boy

Valentine’s Day is Louis’s least favorite day of the year. Not because he’s almost constantly single for it, but because the chocolate at Tesco’s is so outrageously expensive on Valentine’s Day. Sometimes all he wants is a jumbo package of truffles but they’re always either sold out or priced so high that he ends up buying some tequila and calling it a day, trudging home to his cold flat and his recorded episodes of Master Chef.

It’s not so much that Louis begrudges others the chance to enjoy their day of love, or that he’s bitter about being single. He doesn’t care when he has to accompany Liam to the florist’s so he can labor for hours over the perfect bouquet of roses to send to his dumb and moody artist boyfriend. Louis doesn’t mind when people randomly interrupt classes to serenade somebody, and he especially likes when they have heart-shaped cookies at the uni caf.

But the thing is, Louis likes being single. He’s good at it. He thrives on being able to go to bed at 4 AM if he wants to, and no one will sigh about how he makes so much noise late at night. His last boyfriend always got so pissy about the fact that sometimes Louis just gets the urge to make quesadillas at 2 AM sometimes, and who knew that making quesadillas was such a loud endeavor. Louis certainly didn’t. Sometimes Louis likes to attempt to memorize Nicki Minaj songs late at night when he’s procrastinating on writing his Shakespeare papers, and while he feels bad about his next-door neighbors being treated to a free concert, that’s never been enough to stop him from jumping around and fulfilling his dreams of being a rapper, albeit for an appreciate audience of himself. In his mirror.

Not to mention, being single means he can bring home pretty boys from the club and say goodbye the next morning with no expectations or commitments. All he gets are sad and disappointed looks from Liam when he arrives at the bookshop with bags under his eyes, a slight waddle in his walk, and a smudged phone number on his hand. Louis can deal with Liam trying to have a “conversation” with him about when Louis is finally going to “settle down with some nice boy” and Louis has to remind Liam for the hundredth time that not everybody meets their soul-mate in line at the uni caf when they’re 19.

So let it be known that Louis Tomlinson, proud single person, has never been bitter about Valentine’s Day and the abundance of roses and cards and texts from people he hasn’t talked to in ages, and the unfortunate lack of truffles at Tesco’s.

**

“And then he just whips the sheet off, and voila!” Liam gestures excitedly with his hands, earnest like a puppy, a love-struck grin on his face.

“He painted you a picture of himself for Valentine’s Day?” Louis asks dryly, as he restocks their new shipment of sci-fi books. Who even reads sci-fi anymore? “I always knew he had an inflated head.”

“No, Lou, a picture of us,” Liam says patiently. “That one of us on the wall over by the chem building?”

“Nope, sorry, I haven’t taken the time to memorize the pictures of you and Zayn.” Louis rolls his eyes and hip checks Liam as he walks back around the counter.

“Well, you’ll have to come over after work and see it! It’s really a work of art!” Liam claps his hands and smiles at Louis like he’s expecting him to drop everything and rush home with Liam to see some painting of him and his boyfriend.

Louis hums and takes a big gulp of his coffee, burning his throat. He should probably be nicer to Liam about this whole Valentine’s Day thing. In high school, Liam was the boy who waited all week in the hopes that a secret admirer would send him a valentine, who bought the rose for the girl he was crushing on that year. Louis was the boy who made out with the captain of the field hockey team behind the bleachers, gave him a Hershey’s kiss and a slap on the bum, and strutted proudly back into school with nary a thought for roses and valentines.

And now Liam has this boyfriend who apparently paints self-portraits of himself for presents, who made Liam breakfast in bed this morning, and who Louis should probably be nicer to, seeing as he’s the reason why Liam is always too chipper in the morning to tell Louis off for being late to the bookshop.

“Do you have plans for tonight?” Liam asks, hesitantly.

“Li, c’mon, you know how this works,” Louis snorts and turns up the music. Single Ladies by Beyoncé is playing, and there’s a definite purpose behind that song choice. Louis has a playlist titled Being Awesome and Single that he blasts every Valentine’s Day, and really, Liam should have taken a hint.

“Well, I just thought I’d ask,” Liam rolls his eyes and reaches over Louis to turn the music back down, after the scrawny kid in the manga aisle side-eyes them at Louis’s choice in music. As if Beyoncé wasn’t a fucking artist, Louis thinks reverently.

“Nope, just me and my Rocky Road ice cream and my DVR,” Louis snaps his fingers and pushes his hip out towards Liam. “And maybe some porn,” he adds as an afterthought. Liam rolls his eyes again.

“One day, Lou, you’re going to meet someone that you actually will want to make the effort for,” Liam says over his shoulder as he disappears into the back room with a box of books.

“Never!” Louis cries and violently thrusts towards the cash register just as the kid from the manga aisle walks up. “All set?” Louis asks, and casually keeps thrusting as he rings up the boy’s books. The boy doesn’t respond and Louis’s fine with that.

**

Everywhere he goes, there’re couples holding hands and there’s even a damn rose vendor outside the student union building. He sees some blonde kid in a snapback hurry by with a huge stuffed teddy bear under one arm and a giant wrapped up burrito in his other hand and Louis hopes that the boy is bringing his date the burrito. A burrito sounds like the perfect Valentine’s Day gift.

Louis pushes his headphones deeper into his ears and lets the sound of Robyn fill his ears, hurrying along with his eyes on the prize of his couch, his liquor cabinet, and his right hand. Thank god it’s a Friday night so he can drink himself silly and fall asleep on his bathroom floor with his hand down his pants without having to worry about making it to his 8 AM Feminist Writers of the 19th century class.

Louis’s so lost in thought thinking wistfully of his flat three blocks away that he doesn’t notice the person in front of him until he runs smack into the side of somebody solid and wide and dressed in some sort of ridiculously puffy parka.

Louis yanks his headphones out. “What the fuck, mate?” he barks, as the boy he ran into leans down to pick up the bouquet of roses that he was carrying.

When he stands up, he’s much taller than Louis, and Louis fucking hates when people are taller than him, so he plants his fists on his hips and glares up at the boy. His hair is messy, tossed about by the brisk wind whipping around, and his cheeks are flushed pink with cold. He’s got green eyes. He’s got really green eyes, Louis notices.

“Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going!” the boy babbles, cradling a bouquet of red roses in his arms.

“I should say so,” Louis sniffs indignantly. “Almost knocked me off my feet, could’ve killed me.”

The boy cocks his head to the side and looks at Louis with his stupid green eyes and Louis feels the urge to stamp his foot or something because goddamnit he was just going along doing his thing and listening to his feel-good music, intent on getting home, and now he’s got this stupid big pretty person standing in front of him and Louis’s not sure if he wants to shred all the roses in the boy’s arms or kiss his wide red mouth or what. What? Louis catches himself staring at the boy’s lips, which is, like. That’s weird.

“Rose?” The boy finally says, staring at Louis with a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His curls whip around and one lock falls in his eye, almost a perfect ringlet, and Louis almost reaches out and grabs it and tugs on it before he catches himself.

“I - what?”

The boy plucks one of the roses out of the bouquet he’s holding and holds it out to Louis. “Happy Valentine’s Day!” He smiles beatifically at Louis, mouth all stretched across his face and a fucking dimple pops out which is like, that is just not fair, not fair at all.

“Why are you giving me one of your roses?” Louis asks suspiciously, keeping his hands at his sides.

The boy doesn’t seem perturbed by Louis’s coldness, and continues to hold the rose out in the space between them, as if it’s not awkward to have one absurdly long gorilla arm just dangling between the two of them.

“It’s my job!” He says brightly. He shakes the rose at Louis until Louis gingerly takes it from his hand, careful not to prick himself on any of the thorns.

“Your occupation is professional rose…,” Louis pauses, “giver-away?”

The boy nods happily. “Yep! I’m in the Smile Club!”

“We have a Smile Club?” Louis should probably have gone to the Fresher’s fair. First year he went and he wandered around while Nick subtly signed Louis up for clubs like the women’s volleyball club, the Lord of the Rings club, the chess club. Louis hasn’t gone back to the fair since, not since the Chair of the LOTR cub tried to ask him on a date through the group email announcing their first meeting.

“Course we do! We meet every Monday from five to seven in the arts building!” The boy nods his head again, his curls bouncing around and the roses swaying slightly as he rocks up onto his heels.

“What does the Smile Club do exactly?” Louis asks, staring up at the boy, who shifts the roses to one arm and scratches haphazardly at his nose as he continues to bounce on his heels and beam wildly at Louis.

The boy takes a deep breath and, “We are the Smile Club, and it is our mission to make everybody smile every day, because a smile is the best way to brighten someone’s day, and we are dedicated to making the world a better place, one smile at a time!” He recites as if he’s memorized it from a sheet of paper and when he’s finished, he smiles broadly at Louis. If anybody belongs in the Smile Club, it’s definitely this boy.

“I’m Harry!” He sticks out his big hand and wiggles his fingers at Louis until he grasps his hand and gives it a single shake.

“Louis. Still don’t understand why I’m getting a rose.”

“That’s what we do on Valentine’s Day! We hand out roses to people who look like they need to smile!”

“So I look like I need to smile?” Louis laughs ruefully.

“Well, you did yell at me for accidentally running into you,” Harry grins slyly. “But can you blame me?”

“Blame you for what?”

“Running into you!” Harry’s mouth stretches wide and red and he’s got all these white teeth and his cheeks are so pink. “It was just - I had to be close to you! Didn’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?” Louis asks flatly.

Harry leans in close, his eyes big and green in his face. “We had a connection,” he declares solemnly and nods his head once.

“Did we really?”

Harry leans away and grins broadly, nodding furiously. “Yep! I felt it in here!” He thumps his fist into his chest and almost drops his bouquet, wildly flailing until its nestled back into his arms.

Louis hums politely. “Well, I should get home. Gotta go put my rose in a vase and smile at it all night.”

Harry laughs like he can’t tell Louis is making fun of him, and then he stops abruptly. “Wait, you mean you don’t have a date tonight?” He looks genuinely upset at the idea.

Louis shakes his head. “Not unless you count my date with Channing Tatum’s fabulous ass.”

Harry looks confused.

“She’s The Man? Step Up? That movie where he’s a stripper?”

Harry shakes his head.

“Huh.” Louis thought everyone was obsessed with Channing Tatum. Apparently not. “Well, nope, no date!”

“That’s really sad.” Harry looks like he’s about to cry, which is strange considering he was just bouncing around like a ball of sunshine before. The corners of his pink mouth are turned down into a little pout and Louis considers telling him he has a date with the goddamn Prince of Wales, if it’ll make Harry smile like a 1000 watt light bulb again.

Louis shrugs. “Valentine’s Day is about loving myself,” he intones, repeating what he’s always said to Liam and Nick and even his mother when she calls, asking if he’s finally found himself a “young lad”.

“That’s ridiculous!” Harry cries. “You’re so pretty, you should have someone buying you chocolate and giving you teddy bears!”

Louis smiles and a warm little flush blossoms in his chest. The last time someone called him pretty it was followed up with “but you’re a little fucker, so stop feeding my dog human food.” It was Nick. Louis had been ripping up pieces of bacon and sneaking them into Thurston’s food bowl until Nick finally caught him and accused him of having a heart. Louis violently denied ever having such a thing.

“You think I’m pretty?” he smiles shyly up at Harry and his curly, wind-blown hair and the indignant shine in his eyes.

“I do, I definitely do, and pretty people should always have dates on Valentine’s Day!” Harry says firmly.

“Well,” Louis shrugs. “My best friend is busy being wooed by a guy with tall hair and a penchant for self-portraits, so he’s certainly not taking me out tonight.”

Harry’s shoulders droop a little bit, and then suddenly he straightens up tall and his face lights up. “I’ve got it!”

“Yeah? The answer to all my woes”

“I’ll take you out!”

Louis raises his eyebrow. Harry laughs, this loud barking unrestrained laugh, and he doesn’t even clap his hand over his mouth, he just lets the sound boom into the air and it scares a few pigeons away. Louis likes it. It sounds like sunshine.

“You’re going to take me on a date? But I don’t even know you!”

Harry shrugs like he takes random boys on Valentine’s dates all the time. “So? We had a connection, remember?”

“Oh right, how could I possibly forget what you felt,” Louis thumps his chest, “in here?”

Harry nods emphatically. “So, what do you say? I’ll take you out to dinner and everything!”

“Is this like a pity date?” Louis asks suspiciously, with his eyes narrowed. Pity dates are the worst. Pity dates taste like mothballs, they’re hurried hand jobs in the toilets of semi-posh restaurants. Louis’s been on more pity dates than he can count. Pity dates suck.

“Certainly not!” Harry exclaims. “Unless you’re taking pity on me, because obviously if I’m taking you on a date, I didn’t previously have a date either!”

“I thought all pretty people were supposed to have dates?” Louis asks flirtatiously and looks up through his eyelashes at Harry. Harry giggles shyly and looks down at his feet and shrugs.

“Not pretty like you,” he mumbles, and Louis just wants to wrap his arms around Harry, roses and all, because Louis has a soft spot for people who shyly call him pretty but don’t realize that they themselves are the prettiest person Louis has seen in ages.

“Alright,” he says. No idea why he’s agreeing to go on a date with a boy he’s known less than 15 minutes, when Louis has spent his life pointedly not having a date on Valentine’s Day, but he kind of wants to see if Harry’s face will light up again, and as silly as a reason that is to go out with somebody, it’s worth it to see the look on Harry’s face.

“Yeah?” He breathes incredulously.

Louis nods and Harry breaks out in such a wide smile it almost looks like he’s in pain. Louis thinks Harry should be the Chair of the Smile Club, if he isn’t already.

“Yayyyy!” Harry cries. He actually says “yay”, and Louis wonders if Harry is straight off a Hallmark card, because he even tries to clap his hands and then remembers he has a bouquet of roses in one arm and ends up slapping himself in the face with the roses. Louis stifles a giggle into his sleeve while Harry works out his rose problem and pulls his phone out of the back pocket of his wonderfully skinny jeans.

“Here! Text me your address!” he flips the phone to Louis and shakes his hair out of his eyes.

Louis puts it in and texts Harry from Harry’s phone, and waits for the message to pop up on the screen before he snaps it shut (it’s one of those old phones, held together with duct tape) and slyly reaches around Harry and sticks the phone in his back pocket, watching as Harry’s eyes bug out and he bites his lip.

Harry clears his throat noisily and bobs his head around to try and sweep his fringe out of his eyes, until Louis can’t stand watching him fail so miserably, and reaches up and brushes the unruly lock off his forehead.

Harry smiles warmly at him and Louis’s stomach knots up. The clock tower across the courtyard strikes the time, and the students move around them, and the pigeons squawk, and Louis gets lost in Harry’s big green eyes like a dumb cliché.

“So I’ll pick you up at 8?” Harry says after a bit of a silence.

Louis nods, then Harry nods, and then he begins to back away, still facing Louis. He brandishes his bouquet at Louis and points at him, those stupidly long arms and his bulky parka billowing around him. “This is gonna be the best date you’ve ever been on!” he cries as he walks away backwards.

“I’m going to hold you to that!” Louis calls after him and Harry keeps moving away from him, coat whipping around him.

“I’M GOING TO BRING YOU CHOCOLATE!” Harry screams from across the courtyard, his words getting picked up by the wind and whirling back to Louis, making students around them turn and look at Harry. He jumps up in the air, does a little jig, flowers waving wildly in the wind, and then he turns around and runs off between the buildings, his gangly legs tripping him up once or twice and his hair bouncing all over his head.

Louis has a date for Valentine’s Day. What a strange thought.

**

“So let me get this straight,” Nick says, his voice sarcastic and slightly tipsy. There’s a scraping noise from his end of the phone, the sound of a chair being pushed back. “You called me, while you knew perfectly well that I, unlike certain losers, actually have a date tonight, to tell me that actually, surprise surprise, you agreed to go out with a perfect stranger?”

“Yes, yes, and that I don’t know what to fucking wear!” Louis shouts into the phone as he stares into the depths of his closet. Harry’s going to be here in half an hour and all Louis’s done is parade around in his room naked and dance to The Pussycat Dolls, in order to convince himself that going out on a date with a complete stranger is a good idea. The prancing around helped, and now he’s got a bigger dilemma: green jeans or black jeans?

“Pink jeans, darling, it’s fucking V day,” Nick drawls when Louis poses the question to him.

“Not helping, Grimshaw”, Louis growls into the phone. “’M gonna call Liam about this if you continue to be an absolute prat.”

“I forbid you to call Liam,” Nick states flatly. “You’ll end up wearing a fucking button up or something.”

“Exactly.”

“Christ, Lou, my date is probably getting the bill right now because I’ve spent so long in the loo,” Nick sighs heavily, his breath crackling down the phone. “Wear the black ass-skinnies and that dumb white scoop tshirt that makes the boys fall all over you.”

“Ass-skinnies?”

“Oh don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Nick snorts. “Those jeans are the only reason I ever fucked you, and don’t you bloody forget it.”

Louis laughs into the phone because fuck, he does know the jeans Nick is talking about, and it’s ridiculous that his ex-boyfriend has memorized his wardrobe, but what can you do?

“Alright, ass-skinnies, white tshirt, what about hair?” Louis asks desperately, yanking on the jeans and hopping around his room, trying to get them up over aforementioned ass.

“Quiff it, fringe it, do a comb-over, I don’t fucking care, Lou, my date is waiting on me,” Nick huffs angrily down the phone.

“Jesus, someone needs their cock sucked tonight,” Louis snips. “Fine, quiff it is.”

“Fine,” Nick bites back. “I’ll tell you all about the cock sucking if you tell me all about the date with the Chair of the Smile Club.”

“He’s not the fucking Chair-” Louis starts, but the line goes dead, so he throws the phone against his bed and bangs his head against the door of his wardrobe.

Louis is terrible at dates.

**

Harry is wonderful at dates. He does indeed have chocolates, just like he promised. A big thing of them in a heart shaped box. He even has a bouquet. Not roses, thank god, but some other nicely colored flowers that Louis is sure he’ll end up killing within a few days, because Louis is not exactly a gardener. Harry’s dressed all nicely too, a dark blue shirt with a blazer. A blazer. Who the fuck is Louis dealing with here?

Harry opens the car door for Louis and he puts one giant hand on the small of Louis’s back, big and warm and solid and creeping down a little towards his ass, which is, you know, flattering. Ass-skinnies, they do the trick. 

In the car, Louis fiddles around with the radio station, teases Harry about his horrid music that sounds like a monkey shittting out a xylophone, to which Harry screams with laughter and slumps over the steering wheel and almost drives them into traffic, before Louis grabs the wheel and heroically saves them from a fiery death. For the rest of the car ride, Louis keeps reminding Harry that he saved their lives, and Harry just breaks out in little giggles, muttering the words “xylophone” and “monkey” over and over again. Louis can’t stop smiling.

When they get seated at the restaurant, Harry knocks his feet against Louis’s under the table and tells him about his photography degree, at which point Louis is flabbergasted and demands to know why Harry isn’t majoring in smiling, which only makes Harry smile even harder.

“So you’re telling me that someone who professionally smiles isn’t even planning on getting a degree in that?” Louis demands from across the table, hands flat on the tablecloth as he stares at Harry.

“Nope!” Harry giggles and shakes his head, curls bouncing around his funny little ears. “Photography is my one true love!” He gestures grandly, almost knocking his water glass off the table and saving it just in the nick of time.

“Guess you’ll have to take a picture of me one day,” Louis smirks and taps his chin with his fingers, coyly tilting his head towards Harry, who smiles.

“Absolutely, I’ll make an entire exhibit dedicated to you!”

“Well, Styles, you sure know how to win me over,” Louis laughs. “An entire exhibit just for me? How could I refuse?”

“You can’t!” Harry crows triumphantly. “I’ve got you right where I want you, Louis Tomlinson!”

“Which is where, exactly?” A dry, mocking voice says from above them. Louis’s head shoots up and fuck, if he had known this was where Nick and his date were going to be, he would never have let Harry bring him here.

Harry cocks his head and he’s still smiling but his eyes are a little confused. “Sorry?”

“Don’t mind him, Harry,” Louis sniffs and pushes against Nick’s stomach, trying to get him to go away. “Jealous ex-boyfriend, he is.”

“Jealous?” Nick squawks. He points over to the corner where a man is sitting, scrolling through his phone. “I’ve got a date, you little bastard!”

Harry’s still smiling uncertainly, so Louis takes pity on him, and introduces the two of them. “Harry, Nick Grimshaw, Nick, Chair of the Smile Club.”

“I’m not the chair-,” Harry starts to say, but then “wait, what? Grimshaw?”

Nick nods proudly, like he knows what’s coming, and Louis resists the urge to pour his ice water down the back of Nick’s neck, because honestly nobody should look that proud about having a job where you just talk for 3 hours every day. “Nicholas Grimshaw of UC109, at your service.” He even bends into a sweeping bow and Harry’s jaw drops open.

“Mate, such a huge fan!” Harry exclaims, sticking out his hand, and Nick grasps it in his long fingers. “I love your show!”

Louis swears Nick preens at that, and he kicks him in the shin, because Harry is his date and Nick is not supposed to be charming his date.

“Nicholas, please fuck off to your own date and leave me to woo Harry with my wit and charm,” Louis smiles sweetly at Nick. Nick just reaches out and condescendingly trails his fingers across Louis’s cheek.

“Like hell you’ll woo this kid, love, he likes my show which means you two are worlds apart.”

“He said my music taste sounded like a monkey shitting a xylophone,” Harry whispers, almost as if it’s a sin to say the word shit in a posh restaurant. He sounds like he’s confiding a secret to Nick, and Nick acts accordingly, nodding his head knowingly.

“He tends to think that about anything that isn’t Top 40. Terrible child, isn’t he?”

Harry turns and smiles at Louis, his big eyes glowing in the dim lighting and his jaw line thrown into shadow. “Actually, I quite like him.”

Nick sniffs. “Yes, well, who doesn’t?” He takes a big gulp of Louis’s wine and Louis wants to strangle him. “Well, lads, as much as I’d like to educate you with my wisdom, my cock needs sucking.” He waggles his fingers at them, pats his quiff tenderly like it’s his child, and saunters off back over to his date, who watches him approach with nothing short of reverence in his eyes. Poor man, doesn’t even realize what he got himself into, Louis thinks.

“So, Nick Grimshaw, huh?” Harry asks all eagerly, his big hands clasped on the table in front of him. “How do you know him?”

“Went to senior school with him, biggest prat to ever walk the planet, but he’s got a mouth like a vacuum, so we fucked around for a while and then I realized I couldn’t be with somebody who loved his quiff and his hipster clothing more than me,” Louis laughs. “Now he just advises me on my outfits for dates, and then proceeds to embarrass me on said dates.”

“A mouth like a vacuum, huh?” Harry wiggles his eyebrows around like little furry caterpillars and Louis almost chokes on his water.

“Out of all that, the only thing you got was that he sucks dick well?” Louis asks incredulously.

“I’ve always wondered…” Harry trails off dreamily, no doubt thinking about Nick’s lips.

“Oi, we’re on a date here!” Louis reaches over and snaps his fingers in front of Harry’s face and Harry gives an overly dramatic little head shake like he has to physically pull himself out of his thoughts about Nick and his dick-sucking abilities. “You’re supposed to be thinking about my mouth, not my ex-boyfriend’s!”

Harry grins dirtily at him, green eyes glinting darkly, trained on Louis’s mouth. “Oh believe me, Louis, I’m thinking about yours too.”

Louis sniffs primly. “How forward of you, Mr. Chair of the Smile Club.”

“I’m not-,” Harry shakes his head. “Whatever.”

“One day, Haz, don’t give up your dreams of excellence. You’ll be the Chair before you know it!”

Harry chuckles, his mouth rosy and dark pink in the candlelight. “You’re ridiculous,” He shakes his head. “Tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?” Louis responds quickly, clasping his hands under his chin and batting his eyelashes.

“Major, favorite singer, favorite film, sisters and brothers, and dick length,” Harry reels off, ticking them off one by one on his fingers.

Louis laughs and kicks Harry under the table. “English, probably Beyoncé, definitely Grease, four younger sisters.”

“Dick length?” Harry puts his hands together, then spreads them apart, wiggling his eyebrows again.

“Have to find out for yourself!” Louis says in a singsong voice.

Harry hums and looks at him with dark eyes, and a chill runs down Louis’s spine, because he hasn’t had someone look at him like that in a long time.

“Okay, now you,” he nods his head towards Harry, indicating he should answer the same questions.

“Photography, as you know, The Beatles, Love Actually, 14 inches,” Harry grins, his mouth twisting into a smirk that’s all at once several different kinds of dirty and also a little bit angelic, which is ridiculous.

“14 inches?” Louis cries. “You lie, Mr. Chair!”

Harry laughs loudly and spread his hands far apart. “Guess you’ll have to see for yourself.” He winks at Louis and wow, Louis could definitely get with this whole date-on-Valentine’s-Day thing if it means he gets to have Harry as his date for every single one of them.

Harry gets Louis ridiculously tipsy on red wine and Louis laughs so hard his stomach hurts, and Harry’s lips are so dark and stained red by the wine and are the color of raspberries. Louis keeps wanting to lean over and lick his mouth to see if it actually tastes like raspberries. Basically Harry’s whole face is very distracting and as their conversation careens around a dozen different topics, veering from favorite kinds of pasta to ex-boyfriends to high school to whether or not swans are mean, Louis’s feet become wrapped around Harry’s, and their hands sit barely inches away from each other on the table cloth.

**

“I had a really good time tonight,” Harry says shyly. He turns off the radio and they sit in the darkness of his car, the only light the streetlight outside Louis’s flat.

Louis turns and smiles at him. He’s not really ready for this night to be over and from Harry’s drooping eyes and the way he’s leaning towards Louis, he’s obviously not ready either.

“Walk me to my door?” Louis asks quietly. Harry nods nervously, jerkily, gets out of the car and hurries around to open Louis’s door for him, making the little knot that’s been growing in Louis’s stomach get even tighter and the little flame of warmth sitting in his chest lick up into his throat.

They slowly make their way up the path, Harry’s giant feet shuffling on the pavement and his hand keeps bumping into Louis’s until finally Louis just grabs it and sticks their clasped hands inside Harry’s jacket pocket. Harry smiles. Sunshine.

“I kinda wanna kiss you,” Harry breathes out when they’re standing under the porch light. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to, but I really want to? Like, I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I just really want to, so can I? Can I kiss you?”

His cheeks are flushed, eyes a dark green from wine and maybe tiredness and his curls have drooped from where they were standing up at the beginning of the night, and his lips are dark and rosy in the light, and Louis wants nothing more than to kiss Harry, so he sticks his other hand in Harry’s jacket pocket and tilts his face up and lets his lips meet Harry’s.

Harry’s mouth is soft, wet, smoothly pressing into Louis’s mouth and he’s got one giant hand on Louis’s hip and one cupping his cheek. It’s sweet, it’s so so so sweet, sweeter than any kiss Louis has had in a long time. It’s just a small pressure, their lips moving together as Harry’s lips curl into a smile against Louis’s lips. He scratches behind Louis’s ear slightly and turns his mouth to nibble at the line of Louis’s jaw, not even biting, just mouthing gently. Louis sighs, tilts his head back and let’s Harry move all the way down the line of his jaw, bite carefully at his earlobe, and then he moves his lips back to Louis’s. One, two, three small soft kisses he presses against Louis’s lips and then he leans back, keeping a hand on Louis’s hip.

Louis opens his eyes slowly, to find Harry smiling softly down at him, his hair haloed by the porch light and his eyes dark in his face, but fond and sweet.

“That was, without a doubt, the most perfect first kiss,” Louis whispers into the air between them.

Harry nods. “It was pretty magical.”

Louis giggles softly, unwilling to break the quiet that surrounds them.

“I want to see you again,” Harry says bashfully. “Can I?”

It’s just like, Louis really likes Harry, right? He really likes his mouth and his laugh and the way he smiles so big it looks like a giant slice of watermelon, and he likes the way Harry firmly stated that grey whales liked migrating to the Arctic more than they liked migrating to Antarctic, even though he had obviously never met a single damn whale. He likes the way Harry had given him a rose because he thought Louis was pretty and should smile more, and he likes the way Harry had pulled out his iPod at supper and given Louis a complete run-through of his top ten favorite songs, reasons for liking them and meaning behind them. He likes that, even though almost all the songs were absolute shit.

But Louis, he doesn’t do relationships, right? They’re weird and scary and they cut into his TV time and boyfriends don’t let Louis eat ice cream out of the carton.

“I like Britney Spears,” he warns Harry. Harry just shrugs.

“I can deal with that.”

“And sometimes I drink chocolate milk in the bath.”

“I like chocolate milk. And baths. I like them together.” Harry laughs quietly.

“I’m not good at relationships,” Louis whispers it like a secret, right into Harry’s chest. “I fuck them up.”

“I won’t let you,” Harry says simply, and Louis feels him shrug.

Well alright then. Louis nods his head into Harry’s chest, feels Harry’s arms tighten around him. Harry presses a kiss into Louis’s hair and then moves his mouth down to Louis’s ear, hot against the shell and sending goose bumps down Louis’s arms.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Louis.”


End file.
